First Drysuit Questions

[49north]

My wife and I are looking to purchase our first drysuits. We do about 20-30 cold water dives per year spring through fall and warm water dives in the winter. We don't really have any desire to advance to cave or wreck diving.

We have been looking mainly at DUI and Bare, but are leaning more towards Bare mainly due to cost and the fact that we are only a bit over an hours drive to Bare should we need repairs.

The Bare suits we are interested in are:
Trilam Tech Dry
HDC Tech Dry
X Mission

The DUI suit we are interested is the TLS350. One downside I see is that it would have to be sent to DUI for repair. That can be costly from Canada.

Does anyone have any experience with any of these suits? For a moderate amount of OW recreational diving, are the DUI suits really worth the extra money?

Thanks!

 

[Stoo]

Go Bare. Great value for money, and in my experience (All of my friends dive dry... and there's a lot of them...) the Bare suits work better, although they are perhaps less fancy. Most of my friends dive DUI and literally none of them stay dry. Most of them own more than one suit since the other one is always in the shop. I dive a SANTI, and I am not dry. My old Viking IS dry.

If this says anything, my wife bought a Trilam Tech Dry last year and is very happy with it. If you go with the front zip, be sure to ask about warranties and what zipper is in it. The plastic T-zips have a very high failure rate. (SANTI and DUI have both dropped the T-zip. However, SANTI warrantied the zipper, but it's my understanding that DUI did not.) I know Bare warrantied the zipper last year, but you will want to confirm that.

Also Bare has a lifetime warranty on seams. My main dive buddy has an ancient Bare which he just replaced with a new Bare after perhaps 1000 dives. He is missing a hand, so he's very hard on the suit. Bare is retaping all of his seams under warranty.

Go with drygloves, and consider silicone seals. If your wife is a typical female with a thinner neck, relative to head size, she'll appreciate the silicone neck seal.

And don't underestimate geography. Bare is known for it's good service, so having them in your neighborhood can't be bad.

 

[49north]

Go Bare. Great value for money, and in my experience (All of my friends dive dry... and there's a lot of them...) the Bare suits work better, although they are perhaps less fancy. Most of my friends dive DUI and literally none of them stay dry. Most of them own more than one suit since the other one is always in the shop. I dive a SANTI, and I am not dry. My old Viking IS dry.

If this says anything, my wife bought a Trilam Tech Dry last year and is very happy with it. If you go with the front zip, be sure to ask about warranties and what zipper is in it. The plastic T-zips have a very high failure rate. (SANTI and DUI have both dropped the T-zip. However, SANTI warrantied the zipper, but it's my understanding that DUI did not.) I know Bare warrantied the zipper last year, but you will want to confirm that.

Also Bare has a lifetime warranty on seams. My main dive buddy has an ancient Bare which he just replaced with a new Bare after perhaps 1000 dives. He is missing a hand, so he's very hard on the suit. Bare is retaping all of his seams under warranty.

Go with drygloves, and consider silicone seals. If your wife is a typical female with a thinner neck, relative to head size, she'll appreciate the silicone neck seal.

And don't underestimate geography. Bare is known for it's good service, so having them in your neighborhood can't be bad.

Thanks Stoo. I appreciate your feedback. It seems there are positive and negative experiences with all suits. It also seems that spending twice as much does not necessarily get you something twice as good.

I will be sure to enquire about the T-zip. When you look at the Bare website, it sounds like it is the latest and greatest thing. They claim more flexibility. I would rather have more reliability, so it may be better to stick with a traditional brass zipper. I will let you know what they say about it.

 

[Stoo]

My feeling is that you pay for features, not necessarily quality. I love my SANTI in the way it's designed, and it's fantastic to dive in. Except I get wet.

Santi replaced my Tzip with a YKK Plastic zipper. I only have about 12 dives on it since I got it back and so far so good, but it appears to be very similar. Reviews are positive.

Brass zippers are a great option for a back entry suit, but I think they're too stiff for and over shoulder bend in my opinion...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Whichever suit you decide on you can always get them repaired at Superior Diving Repair, Inc.
We've used them many times and Mark and Julie do great work.

 

[BoltSnap]

The DUI suit will be my first choice by a wide margin for certain.

 

[KevinNM]

DUI is reputed to have leak issues with TLS suits due to supplier issues. I know a major repair shop that requires a leak test on every TLS suit they get in to avoid damage claims. FLX extreme are supposed to be very good.

Bare is less expensive and if you can get effective service you might be OK. Everyone I know who bought a custom suit has had leak issues, my standard sized suit has not leaked. Note that some of the Bare suits have the exhaust valve positioned really dumbly unless you normally dive looking at the surface, I eventually paid to have that fixed by someone else. I eventually bought a Santi suit and use my Bare suit as a backup.

I you can get someone at the factory to measure you you should do that, no matter how inconvenient it is. It's incredibly important that you have someone who knows how to measure you for that suit do the measurements and take ownership that the suit will fit when you get it.

 

[49north]

Whichever suit you decide on you can always get them repaired at Superior Diving Repair, Inc.
We've used them many times and Mark and Julie do great work.

Thanks. That is good to know.

The DUI suit will be my first choice by a wide margin for certain.

Can I ask why?

Everyone I know who bought a custom suit has had leak issues, my standard sized suit has not leaked.

Thanks for your input. This is interesting. It makes you wonder if a custom suit is really a custom suit. Perhaps they just modify a standard suit.

 

[BoltSnap]

Can I ask why?

1. DUI as a company: Great customer service and support.

2. Product: I have owned several suits over the last 30 years or so and had several DUI suits in my store's rental fleet and no issues that I can remember except replacing neck and wrist seals which is expected. I have used CF200, CLX450 and TLS350 suits.

 

[Chris H]

As I've mentioned in another post, I'm a big Bare fan. I used a Trilam HD for many years and I just got a made to measure X-Mission and relegated the tri-lam to a backup suit. The X-Mission is awesome! Great fit, huge pockets, neoprene neck seal, the tech boots are nice. They are warmer and reinforced more than the DUI turbo soles (I have turbo soles on my Tri-lam and a Scubapro suit. Both installed by Superior Drysuit Repair so here is another plug for them) but not nearly as huge as the old boots on the tri-lam were. I like the plastic zipper so far, but I'm not sure what brand it is. My X-Mission was made to measure, so I chose what options I wanted, but the Bare suits come very well equipped without any additional cost.
FWIW, I think the suit is actually made in Malta. But I'm really pleased with it nonetheless, and would highly recommend it.
Bare is also offering a lifetime warranty against seam leaks.